Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of Palestinian resistance group Hamas, has been killed in Iran, according to a statement from Hamas and Iranian officials.
Hamas said its leader was killed early on Wednesday following an Israeli raid targeting his residence in Tehran. In a statement, the group mourned the death of Haniyeh, 62, who it said was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.
Haniyeh, a prominent figure in the Palestinian political and resistance group, has been a key public figure before and during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The Iranian government has announced an investigation into the killing, with results expected to be released soon.
“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas.
#BREAKING: Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran — Palestinian resistance group pic.twitter.com/zKE2GM7URc— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) July 31, 2024
Analysts on Iranian state television immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Israel itself did not immediately comment but it often doesn’t when it comes to assassination carried out by its notorious Mossad intelligence agency.
Israel is suspected of running a years-long assassination campaign targeting Iranian nuclear scientists and others associated with its atomic programme.
